Lsd Making Comeback Among Teen Students

Three decades after LSD defined the flower-child generation, the mind-altering hallucinogenic drug has seized a new set of users in college dorms and suburban high schools.

That's right. Acid. The drug that causes some people to hear colors, see sounds and jump out of windows thinking they can fly is making a return trip with a generation that never heard of LSD maven Timothy Leary.

"Some people will try it and have bad trips and not try it again, but most people like it," said John, 18, a University of Pittsburgh freshman who wanted his last name withheld. He saw LSD at his suburban Philadelphia high school last year and even more when he got to college.

"It's become more acceptable, not as much as pot, but it is heading in that direction," the student said.

National studies show alcohol, marijuana and cocaine use by young adults has decreased while LSD use has increased. The most startling figure pertains to male high-school students in predominantly white suburban neighborhoods, where hallucinogen use in 1991 was 18.9 percent, or about one of every five, according to the Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education or PRIDE.

The PRIDE study of 26,000 high-school students released in 1992 showed drops in marijuana and cocaine use, but a 20 percent jump in LSD use since 1989.

Among all young adults, about one of 10 have experimented with acid, LSD's common street name, statistics indicate.

"The word is out that there are advantages to taking LSD that are not present with cocaine," said Dr. Henry Abraham, director of psychiatric research at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Boston, who has studied disastrous LSD cases since 1971.

"It's not addictive and it's cheap," Abraham said. "These kids think, `Hey, it's not cocaine, you can really party with this drug.' And you don't have to go into hock or become a hooker to feed a habit."

A 1991 survey of 15,000 high school seniors found 8.8 percent had experimented with LSD, up from 7.2 in 1986. Cocaine usage fell from 16.9 percent in 1986 to 7.8 percent in 1991, below that of LSD.

The same study, conducted jointly by the University of Michigan and the National Institute for Drug Abuse, found 5.1 percent of college students had used LSD in 1990. That compared with 3.4 percent in 1988. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus one percentage point.

Today, experts say a lack of spending money, the passing of time and marketring of the '60s counterculture have combined to fuel LSD's resurgence.

LSD hits run about $3 to $5 in most areas of the country. The price is higher in some places but it's still more cost-effective than marijuana and cocaine. A gram of cocaine will run about $100. Marijuana costs about $65 for a quarter-ounce.

"When you compare one hit of LSD to a gram of coke, LSD gives you a much longer high," said Ken Jones, who heads a team of narcotics investigators for the Postal Inspection Service in Pittsburgh. "You don't have the intense high for a short time and then a falloff. You get a lot more bang for your buck with LSD."

Another reason for increased LSD usage is the focus upon cocaine and its derivative, crack, in the drug war. LSD has been out of the public eye for years and so have the horror stories about bad trips. But young kids have been bombarded with commercials that assail cocaine and crack use.

"It's been long enough now that LSD doesn't have the same reputation among young people as it did in the '60s or '70s, when young people were reading articles about people flying out of windows while tripping on LSD," said Jonathan Caulkins, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who researches drug trafficking.

LSD use is also part of the '60s nostalgia being revived today. Tie-dyed clothing re-emerged several years ago. Bell-bottoms were the rage in this year's spring fashion shows. The Doors, the innovative '60s rock band with outrageous front man and drug addict Jim Morrison, was the subject of a 1991 Oliver Stone film.

Today's doses, or hits, are about half as powerful as those in the '60s, researchers said. But many users develop a tolerance and soon increase the number of hits to attain the LSD high that some say blows away cocaine and marijuana.

"It just twists every perception that you have," said Alice Holopirek, a former user who now counsels young users in Larned, Kan.

"You see sounds, you see music, you hear colors," Holopirek said. "It's a complete distortion of the way we receive things in our senses."

There are also side effects like flashbacks and panic attacks. And some users suffer from protracted prolonged psychoses in which they lose touch with reality for two to three days and sometimes weeks, said Abraham, the Boston researcher.

"Use of LSD is really like playing Russian roulette with chemicals," Abraham said. "You can spin the chamber and maybe five times you get away with it. Maybe the sixth time you blow your brains out. Instead of bullets, they are using drugs."

LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is derived from a fungus that grows on rye and other grains. It is easily produced in clandestine labs, mostly in California, and commonly disseminated in the form of drug-permeated blotter paper decorated with cartoon characters.

Users place a hit on their tongue or chew on the paper to get a high that lasts about six hours. The experience is called tripping.

While maintaining their focus on crack and cocaine, police and federal agents are starting to investigate LSD sales and are buoyed by tough federal sentencing guidelines. If acid and the blotter paper it is on weighs more than 10 grams, about the weight of 10 paper clips, a dealer faces a minimum of 10 years in prison.

The one thing missing from this generation of LSD users is a spiritual leader - a '90s version of Leary, the former Harvard professor who promoted LSD in the '60s by telling followers to, "Tune in, turn on, drop out."

Leary still stands by the drug, saying bad trips gave it a bad rap.

He needed to take drugs, he says, to learn about the mysteries of the mind that could be gained no other way.

But Abraham said LSD users who say the drug hasn't harmed their minds are in for a surprise.

"It's not that they are lying. They just haven't looked closely enough for a side effect," Abraham said.